By Date

Latvia, a member of the European Union since 2004, is a small, dynamic and open economy that has successfully transitioned from central planning to a market economy. The reforms undertaken have driven progress, although from generally low levels and at a slower pace in agriculture than for the economy as a whole. This report examines the conditions under which farms and businesses in the food and agriculture sector in Latvia undertake innovation to become more productive and environmentally sustainable. It identifies opportunities as well as challenges that need to be addressed. These include economy wide skills shortage, emigration and population decline and urban concentration of population and services. At the sectoral level, these include the use of agricultural payments to support a large number of non-commercial farms and the high level of unpaid farm labour. To meet these challenges, agricultural innovation can be harnessed to improve the sector’s productivity, as well as the sustainability and efficiency of the food system. This report provides a series of recommendations that should allow agricultural policies to contribute to a well-functioning innovation system that can meet the challenges that lie ahead.

Measuring the Digital Transformation looks at how digital technologies are affecting all businesses across the economy, as well as the way people work and live. As a companion to Going Digital: Shaping Policies, Improving Lives, this report maps indicators on infrastructure, technology adoption, education, innovation, trade, as well as economic and well-being outcomes, against current digital economy policy issues, in alignment with the Going Digital Integrated Policy Framework. In so doing, it identifies gaps in the current measurement framework and assesses international progress towards filling these gaps. The goal is to advance the measurement agenda, as a means to improving the monitoring of digital transformations and their impact on growth and well-being.

This report identifies the drivers of the digital transformation and the issues that still need to be better understood, offering a whole-of-economy and society perspective on the key digital trends, impacts, and issues that require co-ordination across policy areas. It helps policy makers leverage the benefits of digital transformation and sets out an ambitious digital agenda for the OECD and beyond. The report reflects the work undertaken in the OECD’s Going Digital project, as well as other relevant OECD work on digital transformation.

This report documents how the ongoing digital transformation is affecting people’s lives across the 11 key dimensions that make up the How’s Life? Well-being Framework (Income and wealth, Jobs and earnings, Housing, Health status, Education and skills, Work-life balance, Civic engagement and governance, Social connections, Environmental quality, Personal security, and Subjective well-being). A summary of existing studies highlights 39 key impacts of the digital transformation on people’s well-being. The review shows that these impacts can be positive as digital technologies expand the boundaries of information availability and enhance human productivity, but can also imply risks for people’s well-being, ranging from cyber-bullying to the emergence of disinformation or cyber-hacking. In sum, making digitalisation work for people’s well-being would require building equal digital opportunities, widespread digital literacy and strong digital security. Continued research and efforts in improving statistical frameworks will be needed to expand our knowledge on the many topics covered in this report.

Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, will be in Barcelona on 25 February 2019 to attend the Mobile World Congress. The Secretary-General will deliver a Keynote speech at the AI Innovation, Ethics and Diversity session. He will also deliver remarks at the Investing in the Digital Transformation Ministerial session.

Related Documents

Portugal aims to develop a more innovative, inclusive and productive economy, and to ensure that the ensuing benefits are widely distributed, regionally and socially. This report assesses the extent to which Portugal’s higher education, research and innovation system is well configured to help Portugal achieve its vision of inclusive innovation, and identify which policy options might help it achieve its goals.The assessment and the related recommendations focus on: 1) governance, strategy and funding in higher education, research and innovation; 2) the missions, profiles and use of resources of higher education institutions; 3) undergraduate and master’s level education activities; 4) doctoral training activities; 5) academic careers; 6) high-skill employment and business innovation.

This new OECD report on the ocean economy emphasises the growing importance of science and technologies in improving the sustainable economic development of our seas and ocean. Marine ecosystems sit at the heart of many of the world’s global challenges: food, medicines, new sources of clean energy, climate regulation, job creation and inclusive growth. But we need to safeguard and improve the health of marine ecosystems to support our ever-growing use of marine resources. Innovation in science and technology will play a key role in reconciling these two objectives. This report identifies three priority areas for action based on a number of in-depth case studies: 1) approaches that produce win-win outcomes for ocean business and the ocean environment across a range of marine and maritime applications; 2) the creation of ocean-economy innovation networks; and 3) new pioneering initiatives to improve measurement of the ocean economy.

Related Documents

Measuring innovation in education and understanding how it works is essential to improve the quality of the education sector. Monitoring systematically how pedagogical practices evolve would considerably increase the international education knowledge base. We need to examine whether, and how, practices are changing within classrooms and educational organisations and how students use learning resources. We should know much more about how teachers change their professional development practices, how schools change their ways to relate to parents, and, more generally, to what extent change and innovation are linked to better educational outcomes. This would help policy makers to better target interventions and resources, and get quick feedback on whether reforms do change educational practices as expected. This would enable us to better understand the role of innovation in education.This new edition of Measuring Innovation in Education examines what has (or has not) changed for students over the past decade in OECD education systems. It reviews no fewer than 150 educational practices. The report casts light on systemic innovation in primary and secondary education, with a focus on pedagogical innovation. Has the use of technology spread? Have assessments become more important in pedagogical practices? Are students given more agency in their learning? Are they still asked to memorise facts and procedures? Do teachers increasingly engage students in peer learning activities? These are some of the questions this book seeks to answer. This report also presents some preliminary findings about the links between innovation and educational performance.This book will offer precious insights to policy makers, the education community and all those who seek to understand how educational practices are evolving.

Over the past two decades, most Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have experienced robust economic growth and been able to make significant reductions in poverty and income inequality. However, growth in the region was not strong enough to ensure convergence towards levels of per capita income observed in advanced OECD economies. An important part of this underperformance can be explained by weak productivity growth. Should this weakness persist, it will be very difficult for LAC countries to achieve better lives for the majority of families. The present publication portrays the situation of LAC countries and discusses best-practice policies. Participation in global value chains is encouraged to enable knowledge spillovers and a process of learning by doing. More regional trade integration would help this process, as Latin America ranks very low and remains a sizeable outlier. The diffusion of knowledge and technology would be facilitated by making it easier to do business, notably allowing new entrants that are facing high barriers to operate and grow. Improved access to education is important to meet the demand for skills, and to boost innovation and research and development, which is particularly true in a context of fast technological change.